Meaning & Origins

Mainly North American and Australian: from the Anglo-Irish vocabulary word colleen ‘girl, wench’ (Gaelic cailín). It became established as a name in the interwar years in North America, and was associated with the star of the silent screen Colleen Moore (1901–88), whose original name was Kathleen Morrison. It is not used as a given name in Ireland. It is sometimes taken as a feminine form of Colin or a variant of Colette.